The dubious removal of Paraguay's former bishop president

By Rodrigo Acuña

Eureka Street

2 July 2012

The recent questionable removal of Paraguay’s left-wing president Fernando Lugo probably broke some type of world record.

With just two hours for Lugo’s lawyers to prepare his
defence, the former Catholic clergyman, once known as ‘Bishop of the
Poor’, was ousted in a 39-4 vote by the Senate within twenty-four hours
of his original impeachment.

Denouncing his removal from the presidency, in which he still had a year left to serve, Lugo summarised the event as a 'parliamentary coup d’état'. He has a point.

The developments which led to the impeachment revolve
around the deaths of 17 people, including six police officers, on 15
June. That day, authorities were attempting to evict a group of families
who had engaged in a land seizure in the Department of Canindeyú. This was not the first time such an incident occurred, but it was the bloodiest.

When Lugo’s centre-left Patriotic Alliance for Change
(APC) won the 2008 presidential elections, expectations by Paraguayans
were high as 50 per cent lived below the poverty line – 35 per cent in
abject poverty.

During the electoral campaign, the student of liberation
theology claimed his administration would reduce poverty and
redistribute land. According to
Eric Stadius from the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington,
roughly two per cent of the Paraguayans control three-quarters of all
property.

Once in office, the Lugo administration did attempt to
carry out a mild land reform program. It also sought to increase taxes
on soybean, as the South American country has recently become its fourth largest exporter in the world.

Despite the president’s plans, the opposition Colorado Party, through the legislature, constantly blocked his progressive reforms.

In response, Lugo repeatedly sought to work with the
opposition. He engaged in one political compromise after another to the
point where sectors of his own constituency became seriously
disgruntled. Eventually, some of Paraguay’s landless peasants decided to
act independently, as they did in Canindeyú.

Releasing a communiqué
on that event, Paraguay’s National Committee for the Recovery of
Ill-Gotten Lands placed the incident into a broader perspective:

'The slaughter in the department of Camindeyú was
the result of a historic class conflict in Paraguayan society, the
product of the support of the three branches of state, of a system of
accumulation and hoarding of land in the hands of a few… The violence
will continue if we do not initiate, once and for all, the return of
lands belonging to the Paraguayan people that today are in the hands of
persons not subject to land reform.'

The individuals blocking the redistribution of farm lands,
which the committee was referring to, are Paraguay’s land owning elite.
Often, they are top ranking members or associates of the Colorado Party
who ruled Paraguay for 61 years since 1947. Most of this governance
took place during the brutal US-backed dictatorship of General Alfredo
Stroessner from 1954-1989.

But even by Latin America’s right-wing thuggish standards,
Gen. Stroessner earned an exclusive place in the pantheon of
Washington’s stooges during the Cold War. Ruthlessly persecuting the
native Guaraní people, over 1 million Paraguayans fled the dictatorship. Upon his death at age 93 in 2006, an article in the Washington Post by Adam Bernstein discussed Stroessner’s rule:

'El Excelentisimo’, as he
sometimes trumpeted himself, was elected every five years with
near-universal approval that he took for a clear mandate. However,
voting fraud was rife, and he tended to receive overwhelming support
from dead constituents.

With a network of informants and the backing of the military, he tortured dissidents, both real and perceived.'

Commenting on the huge levels of corruption during the dictatorship, Bernsteinadded:

'Payoffs were essential to all
commerce, with much of the swag going to top military officers. Paraguay
became a sanctuary for smugglers in arms, drugs and everyday goods such
as whiskey and car parts.

In a noxious twist on Latin
hospitality, Gen. Stroessner provided refuge for French-born
international heroin dealer Auguste Ricord; strongmen such as
Argentina's Juan Perón and Nicaragua's Anastasio Somoza Debayle (later
assassinated in Paraguay); and war criminals, including Josef Mengele,
the Nazi doctor known as the 'Angel of Death' who performed genetic
experiments on children.'

'In spite of my wishes' Stroessner once said, 'the party insisted that I be a candidate.'

In 1989, the caudillo was overthrown by one of
his high ranking henchmen, Gen. Andres Rodríguez, in a battle that cost
the lives of roughly 500 soldiers. But the Colorado Party’s grip on the
presidency did not end there. Its previous monopoly on power allowed it
to rule the country until 2008 when it lost the elections to Fernando
Lugo. Once this leftist led Paraguay, the Colorado Party all of a sudden
decided human rights were important.

When Lugo admitted to fathering a child during his time as a bishop, the opposition quickly used it against him.

By late 2009, the president denied rumours that a possible
military coup would take place against his government. But just to be
on the safe side, he dismissed the country’s top military commanders. After the incident at Canindeyú, Lugo sacked the interior minister and police chief, but this was not enough to placate his political enemies.

Commenting on recent developments, Stadius said: 'the
political process in Paraguay is broken, and this essentially amounts to
a political coup that threatens the country’s democratic legitimacy.'
Reaction throughout the region has been swift with the majority of South
American countries recalling their ambassadors in non-recognition of
the new government headed by Federico Franco.

Leftist leaders like Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, are all too aware that, like the 2009 coup in Honduras against Manuel Zelaya, they have lost another important ally.

But according to the Associated Press, even Chile’s right-wing Piñera administrationsaidLugo's
dismissal, 'did not comply with the minimum standards of due process'
while Colombia’s conservative President Juan Manuel Santos noted that,
'legal procedures shouldn't be used to abuse.'

The German ambassador Claude Robert Ellner though,
according to Associated Press, had a different response, stating that
his government: 'will continue as normal with all cooperation agreements
with Paraguay. We see the process of change happening within the laws
and the constitution, because no parliament makes a coup d'état.'

Likewise, the US State Department recommended 'all
Paraguayans to act peacefully, with calm and responsibility, in the
spirit of Paraguay's democratic principles.'

As is evident from the country’s history, those principles are in abundance.